Awareness of equipment and patient status facilitate efficient and otherwise successful dental procedures. To this end, such procedures routinely rely on a number of monitors and other fixed displays to relay pertinent data to a doctor. For instance, dental procedures conventionally implicate numerous such displays associated with any number of procedures ranging from root canals and bridgework, to tooth transplants. Economic and practical considerations continue to force doctors to expand his or her expertise and proficiency to include still other techniques and associated equipment.
More particularly, each dental procedure typically requires its own respective battery of supporting equipment. For example, equipment for an oral surgical procedure may include a hand drill coupled to a monitor or other display. The monitor may display a numerical torque readout that must be continuously monitored by a doctor. The same procedure may additionally involve irrigation equipment. The irrigation equipment may have its own display configured to present data relating to flow rate, as well as pump and reservoir status. Another exemplary procedure may involve an apex locator and/or a curing unit.
The competing space, wiring and functional requirements of such displays and their associated equipment often precludes positioning the displays within a single field of vision. Consequently, a doctor must continuously turn away from one display to view another or the patient. This action causes the doctor to frequently interrupt his or her view of, for instance, a patient's oral cavity, increasing the potential for inefficiency and patient injury. Such disruption further contributes to doctor fatigue and physical stresses attributable to neck and back contortion.
Consequently, and for in part the above delineated reasons, there exists a need for an improved manner of monitoring dental equipment displays.